Pride
by EatYourRikkios
Summary: When Bella loses her hearing as a toddler, everything changes. (AR, no pairings yet)
1. Chapter 1

_So I was inspired by the vast genre of – how do I put this? - Actually-Interesting!Bella fanfics I've seen before in this fandom. And if I've insulted you with that, well, there's a reason I read Twilight fanfiction so much, instead of rereading the books. I view those as the building blocks of a fantastic, wonderful fandom that is infinitely better than those first cotton candy reading stones. This is my humble contribution, and I only hope it measures up to my favourites. Wish me luck!_

_Please note – yes, I am borrowing some wording from the books throughout the early chapters of this piece, in order to underline how, while Bella is not entirely the same as in the books, ahe still has the same core parts of her personality, and the changes in her haven't changed everyone else in the series. Charlie's still awkward, Edward's still broody, and Jessica's still perfectly normal, and Lauren still goes above and beyond all levels of nastiness and scowling._

_And if I use any terminology in this that's unfamiliar to you, please, let me know, and I'll address it in-story the next chapter, and PM you what the word/s meant as soon as I see your review. Thanks for reading!_

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My mother drove me to the airport with the windows rolled down – Phoenix summers were sweltering, and the car's AC was broken. Again. It was one-hundred-three degrees in Phoenix, not bad for mid-summer, and the sky bright and just a little cloudy. I was wearing my favorite shirt, which my mother was determinedly not looking at – bright blue, with my favorite quote from Frederick C. Schreiber, "Deaf people can do anything that hearing people can do... except hear," fingerspelled. I was wearing it as a hello gesture to my dad. Hopefully he'd be wearing his 'Dad' ASL shirt – he usually did when he met me at the airport, or else held a sign up with my name on it, so I could find him easily.

In the Olympic Peninsula of northwest Washington State, a small town named Forks exists under a near-constant cover of clouds. It rains on this wonderful town more than any other place in the United States of America. It was from this town and its rainy, leafy shade that my mother moved with me when I was three months old. It was on the plane flight from Forks that I caught meningitis, the antibiotics for which caused me to go Deaf. It was in this town that I'd found respite for a month every summer and all of winter break since before I could remember.

It was to Forks that I now happily 'exiled' (my mother's words, not mine) myself- an action that I took with great delight. I loved Forks. I didn't really care about Phoenix. I loved the sprawling city, and my school, Phoenix Day School for the Deaf, but I didn't... love it. It was there, and that was it. It was where I couldn't sign at home because my mother didn't like not knowing everything I said. It was where I was stuck somewhere between oral and Deaf. I was just glad my mother had never been able to afford a cochlear implant – I wouldn't ever want one, my hearing aids worked just fine when I needed them.

"Bella," my mom said to me, waving a hand to get my attention - the last of a thousand times - before I got on the plane. "You don't have to do this."

My mom looks like me, except with short hair, laugh lines, and a distinct lack of green plastic around her ears. I felt a spasm of guilt as I stared at her wide, childlike eyes. How could I leave my loving, erratic, harebrained mother to fend for herself ? Of course she had Phil now, so the bills would probably get paid, there would be food in the refrigerator, gas in her car, and someone to call when she got lost, but still... They had only just gotten engaged – what if they broke up? Then what? Would I move back? Would I have to enroll in Desert Voices again and stop signing if I moved back? I shook my head.

"I want to go," I told her, ignoring her frown at my hands. I'd always preferred signing, and it wasn't like she could do anything about it now that I was moving in with Dad.

"Tell Charlie I said 'hi.'"

"Okay, mom."

"I'll see you soon," she insisted. "You can come home whenever you want - I'll take you right back as soon as you need me."

But I could see the relief in her eyes behind the promise. No more blaring lights for a doorbell, no more foot-stamping to get my attention. It'd be easy for her again – hadn't she said a thousand times, she only wished I could be 'really' hearing, and not just able to talk?

"Don't worry about me," I urged, trying to make her feel better. "It'll be great. I love visiting Dad, and you and Phil need some time alone now that you're engaged."

She hugged me tightly for a minute, and then I got on the plane, and she was gone.

It's a four-hour flight from Phoenix to Seattle, another hour in a small plane up to Port Angeles, and then an hour drive back down to Forks. Flying doesn't bother me; I love it, and always try to get a window seat to see the ground drop out from under me. It's an amazing rush.

Not to mention my father was waiting at the end of the flight.

Charlie had really been fantastic about the whole thing. He seemed genuinely happy that I was coming to live with him for the first time with any degree of permanence. He'd already gotten me registered for high school, arranged for an interpreter with the school board, and was going to help me get a car of my own – something my mother had never even considered letting me have.

When I landed in Port Angeles, Charlie was waiting for me, Dad T-shirt, sign and all. I grinned, rushing over. He dropped his sign giving me a tight bear hug when I stumbled into him. "It's good to see you, Bells," he signed, smiling as he automatically caught and steadied me. "You haven't changed much. How's Renée?"

"Mom's fine. She wants you to find me an oral program in Seattle or something. It's good to see you, too, Dad."

He rolled his eyes at Renee's request, and we grabbed my purple suitcases before he led me to the police cruiser. This I was expecting. Charlie is Police Chief Swan to the good people of Forks. My primary motivation behind buying a car, despite the scarcity of my funds, was that I refused to be driven around town in a car with red and blue lights on top. Nothing slows down traffic like a cop.

I had only two bags to stuff into the cruiser's trunk. Most of my Arizona clothes were too permeable for Washington, so I'd only packed my favorites and what was suitable. I would be wearing lots and lots of jeans.

My mom and I had pooled our resources to supplement my 'tundra gear,' as she called it, but it was still scanty. It all fit easily into the trunk of the cruiser.

"I found a good car for you, really cheap," he announced when we were strapped in and the dim car light turned on.

"What kind of car?" I was suspicious of the way he signed "good car for you" as opposed to just "good car."

"Well, it's a truck actually, a Chevy."

"Where did you find it?"

"You know Billy from La Push?" La Push is the tiny Indian reservation on the coast. I played there with Billy Black's son Jacob, and his older twin daughters all the time when we were younger, though in recent years, it had turned into just Jacob and I throwing mud at one another until we got bored, and I watched him build cars.

I nodded.

"He's in a wheelchair now," Charlie continued, "his diabetes put him in it a few months ago,so he can't drive anymore, and he offered to sell me his truck cheap."

"What year is it?" I could see from his change of expression that this was the question he was hoping I wouldn't ask.

My dad dithered for a moment before signing. "Old."

"Old, Dad?" I prompted

"He bought it in 1984, I think."

"Did he buy it new?"

"...No. I think it was new in the early sixties - or late fifties at the earliest," he admitted sheepishly.

Drat. I liked old cars – I thought they looked good, and according to Jacob they were the best thing on this planet to drive, but owning one? "Dad, I don't really know anything about cars. I wouldn't be able to fix it if anything went wrong, and I couldn't afford a mechanic..."

"Really, Bella, the thing runs great. They don't build them like that anymore."

The thing, I thought to myself... it had possibilities – if I could keep it running.

"How much money does Billy want?" After all, that was the part I couldn't compromise on. I only had so much to spend.

"Well, honey, I kind of already bought it for you. As a homecoming gift." Charlie peeked sideways at me with a hopeful expression.

Wow. Free.

"Dad..." I stopped short. I wanted to say, 'You didn't need to do that, Dad. I was going to buy myself a car,' but it seemed ungrateful. I shook my head. "Thanks, Dad. I love you."

"It's fine. I want you to be happy here." He was looking ahead at the road when he signed this, one-handed. Charlie wasn't comfortable with expressing his emotions out loud. I was very much the same – I generally didn't act serious about my emotions, playing them off, depreciating how much I meant them to others

"Thank you," I repeated.

"Well, now, you're welcome," he mumbled, embarrassed by my thanks.

We exchanged a few more comments on the weather, which was wet, and that was pretty much it for conversation. We stared out the windows in silence, the car light off, now. Washington was beautiful; no-one could deny that. Everything was green: the trees, their trunks covered with moss, their branches hanging with a canopy of it, the ground covered with ferns. Even the air filtered down greenly through the leaves.

It was so green – like an alien planet compared to Phoenix.

Eventually we made it to Charlie's. He still lived in the small, two-bedroom house that he'd bought with my mother in the early days of their marriage. Those were the only kind of days their marriage had - the early ones. There, parked on the street in front of the house that never changed, was my new - well, new to me - truck. It was a faded red color, with big, rounded fenders and a bulbous cab.

I loved it.

I didn't know if it would run, but I could see myself in it. Plus, it was one of those solid iron affairs that never gets damaged - the kind you see at the scene of an accident, paint unscratched, surrounded by the pieces of the foreign car it had destroyed.

"Wow, Dad, I love it! Thank you!" Now my fantastic day was just that much more wonderful. I wouldn't be faced with the choice of either walking two miles in the rain to school or accepting a ride in the Chief's cruiser when school started next month.

"I'm glad you like it," Charlie said gruffly, embarrassed again.

It took only one trip to get all my stuff upstairs. I got the west bedroom that faced out over the front yard. The room was familiar; it had been belonged to me since I was born.

The wooden floor, the light blue walls, the peaked ceiling, the yellowed lace curtains around the window - these were all a part of my childhood. The only changes Charlie had ever made were switching the crib for a bed and adding a desk as I grew.

Oh, and the door beacon the summer I was twelve and didn't know he'd knocked – it had been embarrassing for both of us, but thankfully my father hadn't walked in on me changing since it was installed. The desk now held a secondhand computer, with the phone line for the modem stapled along the floor to the nearest phone jack, and a round black webcam perched precariously atop the monitor. This was a stipulation from my mother, so that we could stay in touch easily. The rocking chair from my baby days was still in the corner.

There was only one bathroom, at the top of the stairs, which I would be sharing with Charlie. I would be keeping my shampoo away from his – he had a tendency to use mine when he ran out, rather than get more of his own.

One of the best things about Charlie is he doesn't hover like Renee, always wanting to help or do something for me. He left me alone to unpack and get settled, a feat that would have been altogether impossible for my mother. It was nice to be alone, to just do things for myself; a relief to stare out the window at the sheeting rain and let myself feel pleased that I didn't have to live with my mother any longer. I wouldn't feel guilty about that. I would save that for tomorrow night, when I would have to video call my mother for her peace of mind.

Until then, I would worry about school starting in a month.

Forks High School had a normal(to me) total of only three hundred and fifty-seven – now fifty-eight - students; a few less students than at Phoenix Day School for the Deaf back home, but massively smaller than the city hearing school had been. One difference from Phoenix, however, was that all of the kids in Forks had grown up together - their grandparents had been toddlers together. At PDSD, everyone had at least one thing in common – Deafness. At Desert Voices, the oral school I went to until I demanded to go to a Deaf school in eighth grade, everyone was deaf or hard of hearing.

Here? At a hearing school? I would be the new Deaf girl from the big city, a curiosity, a freak. Maybe, if I looked like a girl from Phoenix should, I could work this to my advantage.

But physically, I'd never fit in anywhere. I should be tan, sporty, blond - a volleyball player, or a cheerleader, perhaps - all the things that go with living in the valley of the sun.

Instead, I was ivory-skinned, without even the excuse of blue eyes or red hair, despite the constant sunshine. I had always been slender, but soft somehow, obviously not an athlete; I didn't have the necessary hand-eye coordination to play sports without humiliating myself - and harming both myself and anyone else who stood too close.

Not to mention, I had lime green hearing aids on both ears. I was doomed to stick out.

When I finished putting my clothes in the old pine dresser, I took my toiletry bag and went to the bathroom to clean myself up after the day of travel. I looked at my face in the mirror as I brushed through my tangled, damp hair – the annoying thing about rain, I decided, was that it never just stopped. It stuck in your hair and clothes forever.

Facing my reflection in the mirror, I was forced to admit that I was lying to myself. It wasn't just physically that I'd never fit in. And if I couldn't find a niche in a school where you could relate to everyone at least a little, what were my chances here, where I'd have my own pseudo-stalker in the form of an interpreter?

I didn't relate well to people my age. Maybe the truth was that I didn't relate well to people, period. Even my Dad, who I was closer to than anyone else on the planet, was never in harmony with me, never on exactly the same page. Sometimes I wondered if I was seeing the same things through my eyes that the rest of the world was seeing through theirs. Maybe there was a glitch in my brain.

But the cause didn't matter. All that mattered was the effect. And the next month would be just the beginning.

My Dad and I went to South North for dinner – it's my favorite restaurant in Forks. The only Chinese restaurant, too. The waitresses never stared, and the food was delicious – they weren't skimpy on portions, either. It was something of a tradition between Charlie and I – we always went my first night in Forks. It may be the only night we went, but we went.

I fell asleep that night with a smile on my face. Forks was looking to be wonderful.

.

The next morning broke dim and wet, and I decided to finish putting things up in my room before going downstairs for breakfast; my clock read five AM, so I had some time before Charlie woke up and went to work. I pulled my posters out of my larger suitcase, put away the last of my books and DVDs, and found some glue to put up a white board on the front of my door. I'd have to remember to buy some dry erase markers – I must have left mine in Phoenix.

I was almost done making scrambled eggs when Charlie came downstairs, bleary eyed and with his work jacket half hanging from his shoulders. I admit it – I laughed. That seemed to wake him up a little more, and soon he'd eaten all his food, and I was washing the dishes. I hated to leave them stacked, it was too much of a mess.

I looked up when he tapped me on the shoulder. "What's up?" I asked.

Charlie looked sheepish. "I have to work today."

I nodded. Oh. "That's fine, Dad. But... maybe you could pick me up, have the two of us eat lunch together? You could leave me in town after we eat, and walk around for a bit, make sure I know where everything is. Do we need food – I could go to the store."

My dad looked a little confused, and I realized I'd been signing too quickly in my nervousness for him to follow. On one hand, I didn't want him to feel like he had to do everything for me, like Renee had, but I usually only ever went to La Push to play with the Blacks or to the grocery store when I was with Charlie. I wasn't exactly confident about my ability to not get lost, no matter how small Forks was.

"Again? Please?" he asked, and I nodded, repeating myself more clearly. He nodded. "That's fine, Bells. We can go to the Lodge, and I'll pick you up when I get off work at five-thirty. Text me then and tell me where you are, got it?"

"Got it, Dad. Thanks."

The corners of his mouth turned up slightly, and he ducked his head, fiddling with his keys. "I'm happy to, Bells. It's fine," he signed.

The morning passed quickly, with me cleaning up a little and making sure Charlie had plugged in all the signalers properly, in case anyone rang the doorbell, called, or – knock on wood – a fire started.

By noon, I was completely bored, and had taken to flicking through TV channels in hopes of finding something interesting on. Charlie's DVD player was broken, and my cello was still on a US Postal Service van somewhere, waiting for me to play it again.

I nearly ran out of the house when I saw the door lights flash. "Dad!" I signed, excited, and would have gone on, except my father was... not the person at the door.

That was... definitely a surprise. I hadn't expected to find Betty Crocker on the front step. I waved. "Sorry," I apologized, "I thought you were my dad."

The woman blinked slightly, and her face took on a slightly pained expression. "I'm sorry, I don't know what you're saying, dear," she said slowly.

I sighed. I should have figured that and sim-com'd, but I could hope. "I'm Bella," I said, and held out a hand to shake. "I'm Charlie Swan's daughter – I just moved in here yesterday."

The lady nodded, smiling. "Oh! It's very nice to meet you, dear! I'm Suzanne Baker, I live next door," she said loudly, pointing behind her. I winced and reached a hand up to lower the volume on my hearing aids. I could just make out that she was practically yelling with them, but had to rely on lipreading to understand the words – not easy when she enunciated like she was. "I came to ask if you had any sugar?"

I nodded. "Come on in," I said normally, smiling with my lips closed, trying to seem polite. "I'll just take a second."

Mrs. Baker nodded enthusiastically, and I rolled my eyes once my back was turned. I felt like she thought I was some stupid little puppy, that had to be pet every time it did something even remotely note-worthy. I handed her the almost-empty bag of sugar that had been hiding in the back of Charlie's cupboards, and made a note to add that to the grocery list.

Thankfully, my dad showed up soon after Mrs. Baker left, allowing me to get out of the house.

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_So, how did I do? Did you like it? Did you hate it? What did you think of Bella, Charlie, and Renee? Are you curious about what happens next? Please, let me know what you think!_

_Again, if I mentioned anything that you didn't understand or quite get, please let me know - I welcome the questions, and am happy to answer._

_Thanks for reading, and **EatYourRikkios**. :)_


	2. Chapter 2

_Thankfully, my dad showed up soon after Mrs. Baker left, allowing me to get out of the house._

"You want to eat at the diner?" my dad asked as I unbuckled my seat belt. I nodded, watching him pull off a parallel parking job I could never hope to match, considering my klutziness.

As we sat down inside the diner, waiting for the waitress to take our order, Charlie looked around awkwardly before asking, "Any boys you've left behind I should know about?"

I blinked, tempted to laugh it off, before realizing that he was actually serious – dare I say, he was worried. It was sweet. I shook my head, suppressing a happy grin. He relaxed visibly. "You don't need to smile about it!" I exclaimed, moving on to a new topic – what I needed to pick up at the grocery store later.

Lunch was a pleasant burger-and-fries affair, which was delicious. The two of us didn't say much, but neither of us minded. It was nice.

It was about a half an hour later that the waitress came with our check, and Charlie's lunch hour was nearly over. We said our good-byes, and he reminded me to text him at five-thirty, when he got off work, so he would know where to pick me up. I was about to leave when he stopped me and handed me two twenty dollar bills. "For whatever you want to eat," he signed. I was genuinely surprised – I had planned on using some of my own money.

"Thanks, Dad."

He flushed.

Downtown Forks wasn't very large, perhaps three blocks by five blocks at the most, with shops spotting the blocks surrounding that. Enough for an afternoon of browsing, definitely, and it went right by the High School, which I was looking forward to seeing.

I spent a little while poking through thrift stores and a large-ish family owned book store with an interesting variety of novels. There wasn't much to see, though, and soon I found myself walking up to the high school. It wasn't huge, like the mainstream school I used to pass on my was to PDSD, but it wasn't tiny. It was a pretty 1920's style brick building, two stories in the front, one everywhere else, with bright red doors and accents on the brown bricks and pale cement blocks.

Brightly-colored flowers grew in tall bushes near the windows, and short green shrubs lined the walkway to the main doors. There was a tall flagpole, and a large wooden sign proclaiming "Forks High School Home of the Spartans" in raised yellow letters.

It was pretty. I hoped it was as nice as it looked – I'd heard a lot of stories from classmates that had been mainstreamed back in Phoenix, and very few of them were good. It made me feel relieved that I would be having an interpreter; some of the students I'd spoken to had been sent to hearing schools straight away, not knowing how to talk or speech-read at all – several of them didn't even sign,then.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I was winding myself up for nothing, everything would go fine. I'd like the school, the other students would be nice enough, and the teachers wouldn't make faces at my interpreter.

Shrugging my shoulders, I walked toward where I vaguely recalled seeing the grocery store an hour earlier.

Thank whatever God there was for the magazine racks.

It was five o'clock when I finished getting almost everything on the grocery list – I'd pick up the refrigerated foods and vanilla ice cream just before heading to checkout, I didn't want any of it to go bad or melt. I ended up adding _National Geographic,_ _Time,_ and _Cooking Light_ to my shopping cart before checking out.

At five-thirty, I was standing in line, waiting to check out, and texting Charlie. _'At grocery checkout. Will be out front when done,' _I typed. I jumped when a hand suddenly flapped itself into my field of vision, and an irate checkout girl scowled at me.

"Quit texting, Jeez!" she frowned. "Your total is $36.58."

"Thirty-six fifty-eight?" I repeated, wanting to make sure I'd gotten everything. The girl rolled her eyes and nodded, taking the money when I handed it to her. She handed me my change, and a few minutes later, Charlie picked me up in the police cruiser.

"I met a girl at the store," I told him, once we'd reached a stop light. "She was the checkout clerk. She got annoyed when I texted you."

Charlie's eyebrows rose. "Oh? What was her name?"

I shrugged. "Don't know. I didn't see her name tag. She had blonde hair, cut short, with freckles, and maybe brown eyes?"

My dad nodded. "I think I know her. Heather Young – her brother is one of my officers. Are, uh, you two friends, now?"

"I don't know yet."

He seemed confused by my answer, but let it be as the light turned green and we drove the last mile or so to the house.

.

That night, Charlie managed to fix the DVD player, and the two of us had fun watching Shakespeare's _Twelfth Night_ in ASL. I had fun; _Twelfth Night_ was my favorite play, and Charlie liked it, too, so we both had fun.

Once the movie was over, we ended up ironing out what my chores were going to be. I was surprised; I had a lot less to do here than in Phoenix. I only had to clean up after myself, clean the bathroom every other week, and help with dinners. Other than that, Charlie just wanted me to add to the grocery list whenever we ran out of something.

It was nice.

The rest of the month passed quickly, the school Open House happened, where I got to meet my interpreter and teachers, and soon summer vacation ended. August thirty-first dawned foggy, with lots of stumbling around at too early an hour to try and find my light switch. I ended up dressing half-blind, but my clothes turned out rather well for it, in my opinion. It's hard to go wrong with jeans and t-shirts, after all. And it would hopefully make it easier for my interpreter to find me – I doubted many hearies would be walking around with a 'Warning: DEAF! And Proud Of It!' shirt.

Charlie drove me to school on his way to work at six, since we still needed to get me enough driving hours for my license, which meant that, thankfully, there wasn't anyone besides a few teachers to see the cop car pull up in front of the building. If there had been any students, I'm certain I'd have died from embarrassment. 'Oh look, the weird new girl got taken to school in a cop car! She's from a big city, so I guess she must be on parole or something!'

I was eternally grateful that that didn't happen. Instead, I had breakfast in the cafeteria, and ended up walking into my interpreter, Pamela, name sign 'think' with a P. I nearly fell over her when I got up to throw my spork and cardboard food tray away. She didn't mind, and laughed it off when I apologized. We looked at my class schedule together, and made sure to see where everything was before school started.

While we were doing this, I saw everyone getting up from their seats, and heard the school bell ring. After confirming that we were going to Homeroom first when Pamela asked, the two of us set off.

I can do this, I lied to myself feebly. No-one was going to bite me. I finally exhaled when we reached the classroom, and stepped inside. I glanced nervously at Pamela, and toyed with the sleeves of my dark gray hoodie. There was a nameplate on the teacher's desk declaring the balding man to be Mr Mason – my English teacher first period, as well as Homeroom.

Trying not to show my nerves, I walked up to the desk. "Excuse me?" I said. The tall, balding man turned around, eyebrows raised in interest. "I'm Bella Swan, is there assigned seating?"

Mr Mason started speaking very quickly, and I glanced at Pamela, who was already signing, to my relief. "Oh! The Deaf girl! Yes, I mean, not for Homeroom, but I remember seeing your name on my roster for first period – I'll be putting up a seating chart on the overhead then." I nodded, and looked back to Mr Mason, who was staring bemusedly between me and Pamela.

"I beg your pardon, but if you can speak, why do you need an interpreter?" he asked.

I blinked for a moment. "I'm sorry – did you just ask why I had an interpreter?" I asked, to make sure I'd read his lips correctly. He nodded. Okay, then. "I can speak, but to understand what you're saying, I need to speech-read, to see your lips. If I'm lucky I can read about sixty percent of what you're saying, but that's not enough to do well in your class. So, I have an interpreter. He name is Pamela. She's standing right next to me."

I winced as soon as I said that. It was probably rude, but Pamela was standing right next to me, and personally, I felt insulted that Mr Mason asked, even if, logically, I was glad he didn't just assume that because I could talk I could hear. I _couldn't_ hear, so how did he think I was going to learn anything from his lecture? Osmosis?

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that," I told him, and ducked my head as I walked to a pair of empty seats near the door. I pulled out a book to read, and was just starting to get into it, when someone tapped me on the shoulder.

"Hi!" the boy said cheerfully. He was gangly, a sort of acne beard and black hair that fell into his face. "You're Isabella Swan, aren't you?" He asked eagerly.

"Yes," I told him. "Call me Bella, though." I tried not to jump in surprise when at least four people turned in their seats to look at me. I felt like some sort of creature on display in a zoo; it was uncomfortable.

The boy grinned, holding out his hand. "Cool! My name's - are you in - first?"

My brows furrowed. "Can you say that more slowly," I asked. "I didn't catch everything you said."

He blinked rapidly, before shrugging a little and repeating himself, this time staying still in his seat. Apparently his name was Eric and he wanted to know if I was in English first, like him. "Good to meet you," I told him. We exchanged pleasantries for a few minutes, until the bell rang, and two-thirds of the students scrambled out of the classroom.

Meanwhile, Mr Mason had put up the seating chart for first period, and Pamela left to take advantage of the passing period to go do – something. I wasn't sure what. I assumed she had to go to the bathroom, because I couldn't think of anything else she might want to do at a school.

The rest of the day passed quickly, with locker assignments in second period (Government), French in third, and Trigonometry in fourth. There was one girl in my French and Trig classes that was nice enough. She was slim and short, with dark blonde hair and pale gray eyes.

She asked a lot of questions about signing and why I decided to go to a mainstream school rather than a Deaf school, once I told her that that was an option. The answer was simple – I didn't want to literally live at school five days a week, and only see my dad on weekends and holidays. If that had been the case, I would have just stayed in Phoenix, rather than insist on moving to Forks as soon as my mother got engaged.

Her name was Shannon Harmon, and we ended up talking all the way to lunch, at which point she introduced me to her friends. Ben, who was lanky with very blonde hair and an earring; Maria, a happy-looking girl with dark hair and lots of eyeliner around her green eyes; and a freckly girl named Faith, who had ink on the sides of her hands and very choppy red hair.

Introductions went around, and I felt myself relaxing; this wasn't half so bad as I'd feared it would be. The four other teenagers didn't really mind repeating themselves, and while it was annoying when Ben suggested writing everything down, overall things went pretty smoothly. Halfway through lunch, Faith asked about how to spell out names in ASL, which led to an impromptu lesson in finger spelling in exchange for directions to the art room, which wasn't marked on my map of the school.

Of course, I ended up having Biology II before Art class, but at least now I knew where it would be.

Pamela was waiting for me outside the Biology classroom. When we entered the classroom, half of the familiarly black-topped tables had students in them. I frowned, silently hoping that I wouldn't end up having to sit alone. I walked up to the teacher's desk to have my schedule signed, and get my text book from Mr. Banner.

The man handed me my book with a no-nonsense set of instructions, and a brief smile – apparently he had a Deaf granddaughter in Seattle, and she'd just started attending the Deaf school there. He said he didn't know much sign language, but he knew enough to introduce himself and talk to me a little, and I smiled.

Soon, the bell rang, and Mr. Banner started pairing students up by lottery – we all wrote our names on a slip of paper, crumpled it up, and he pulled them out of a hat on his desk. I was seated at the frontmost center desk with a shy looking girl named Angela. Everything went normally until the boy that had been in front of my desk moved to his own.

The guy behind him was beautiful. He had gorgeous messy bronze hair, and he looked like a model – post-Photoshop. I stared. Was he real? Or was this just a very _nice_ hallucination?

But as I watched him, he went rigid, and his head snapped to look at me, with the strangest expression I'd ever seen on his face – it was hostile, furious. I looked away quickly, shocked, and stared at my blue spiral notebook, with the sign for 'Science' doodled on the front in silver Sharpie. I was certain I must be bright red. I flicked my eyes up again, and his fists were clenched. I noticed that his eyes were black – coal black.

Mr. Banner sent him to his seat a minute or so later, and I determinedly did not look at him after he'd passed my desk, bewildered by the antagonistic stare he'd given me.

Pamela waved to catch my attention from her spot at the front of the room, having noticed my – I suppose it could be called interaction – with the gorgeous, hostile boy. "Are you okay?" she signed. "You look upset."

I nodded, plastering a smile on my face for good measure. I'd had lots of practice bluffing at Renee's. "I'm fine." I told her. "The boy, with the red-brown hair, was just glaring at me, and I got upset. I'm ok, though,, don't worry about it."

The interpreter nodded, and soon class started, and I couldn't stop myself from looking back at the boy once or twice. Each time, he was glowering, eyes full of revulsion, and I had to look away; I felt sick to my stomach. It _couldn't_ be anything I'd done. He didn't know me from Eve. He didn't even know my name.

Was this his normal behavior? I questioned how he had any friends if that were the case. I glanced back at him one last time, and regretted it instantly. The phrase, "If looks could kill" ran through my mind, and it had never seemed more apt. I flinched away from his look, shrinking in my seat and jotting down the last of my notes before the bell rang, and suddenly the boy was gone, stalking past my desk with an almost inhuman speed.

I sat frozen in my seat, staring blankly after him. He was... awful. It wasn't fair – I hadn't done anything to him. What, did he see my shirt and decide a Deaf girl didn't belong in a mainstream school or something? It wasn't fair. I began slowly gathering up my things slowly, trying to block the anger that filled me, for fear my eyes would tear up – I had always hated that reaction in myself. For some reason, my temper was hardwired to my tear ducts, and I hated it; it was a humiliating tendency.

Someone tapped me on the shoulder.

I looked up to see a very short girl with light brown hair and eyes looking at me with concern. "Are you okay?" she asked. I was surprised to see honest compassion in her eyes. I nodded slowly, ad she gave me a tentative smile. "Well, if Edward gives you any trouble, don't feel afraid to report him – I've never seen him act like that, but it isn't right. What's your next class?"

"Umm," I stammered, looking down at my schedule. "Art 101," I smiled. She perked up. "I have photography, they're in the same classroom. Do you want me to show you how to get there?"

A quick glance at my map answered that question for me. "Yeah. Thanks."

"No problem."

It was becoming a good day.

.

_So, tell me, how was it? A decent follow-up chapter? And questions on what was written? Seriously, feel fre to ask away! PM, Review, whatever. Just let me know._

_Hope you liked it, and remember to **EatYourRikkios**! _:-)


	3. Chapter 3

_"Are you okay?" Angela asked with honest compassion in her eyes. "If Edward gives you any trouble, don't feel afraid to report him – I've never seen him act like that, but it isn't right. What's your next class?"_

_"Umm, Art 101,"_

_"I have photography, they're in the same classroom. Do you want me to show you how to get there?"_

_A quick glance at my map answered that question for me. "Yeah. Thanks."_

_"No problem."_

_It was becoming a good day._

.

When Charlie came home from work that night, I didn't say much, just made dinner for the two of us and ate quickly. I had a good time with Angela in art class, but with my mother's video call looming ahead and the memory of that Edward guy, angry and vicious, in Biology behind me, I wasn't in the best of moods.

Apparently, my dad noticed.

"You okay, Bells?" he asked, stopping my with a touch to my arms as I started up the stairs to my room. "You look upset," he added, clearly nervous.

I almost denied it, but something stopped me when I looked at him fully. "It's stupid," I told him, hedging. "I figured it would happen at some point." He continued giving me the same imploring look, silently waiting for me to continue, and I sighed. "There was a boy in my science class today. I think he doesn't like me because I'm Deaf."

Charlie blinked in surprise, and his shoulders sagged – he hadn't wanted this for me. "Oh, Bells – sweetheart. I'm so sorry. Who was it? What did he say to you?"

"My hair fell around my face as I shook my head quickly. "No, Dad," I signed. "He didn't say a word to me. He just saw me and began glowering, like I'd killed his puppy or his best friend. It was like he hoped my head would explode if he stared long enough – he did it the entire class."

My dad's frown grew, and he asked what the boy's name was, if I knew. "My lab partner Angela – kind with an 'A' – said his name was Edward." I told him, finger-spelling the angry boy's name. Judging by Charlie's face, he didn't quite catch it.

"Again?"

I nodded. "E-D-W-A-R-D. Angela said his last name was something like Collin? I couldn't read her lips well."

Charlie's face grew dark. "I think I know who he is," he frowned. I blinked, taken aback slightly by the upset I could see on his face. It was just a stupid hearie guy, I'd dealt with worse, just not in school. Usually, school was a safe haven for me, which was why it had upset me today, but surely Charlie wouldn't be so wound up about it unless –

Did Edward have a criminal record? That would explain why my dad knew his name, he might have been arrested before. I felt unease churn in my stomach at the thought. What if this boy was violent? I gulped, and hoped nothing bad happened. I may ask for a schedule change, after asking about this boy a bit. Maybe Angela or Faith would know something.

Seeing Charlie punch the buttons on the phone with his fingers, I decided I may as well just leave then, and slowly backed up the steps to my room.

Once I was inside, I stumbled a bit trying to turn on my desk light, and waited for my computer to boot up. It didn't take very long, though the computer itself was very nearly ancient. I'd taken good care of it since Charlie put it in my room three years ago, fresh from a garage sale. It had hardly been worth saving then, but I checked a few computer books out from the library, and Rachel Black helped me set it up so that it actually ran, and didn't have many pop-ups, either. Now it worked on par with a school computer, so long as I didn't run a lot of programs at once.

That was when things started crashing.

My desktop finished loading, and I closed out a few starting windows, nagging at me to update, opting instead to open up my video calling program, checking to see if Renee was online yet. She was. I blinked, surprised. With a shrug, I clicked the video call button, and waited for her to pick up.

A picture blinked into existence, but the face wasn't my mother's. It was Phil's. He waved, and said something I couldn't quite make out – maybe he was going to get my mother?

I assumed I was right, as she appeared onscreen a moment later wearing a pretty black formal dress, her hair in a curly updo, and still putting in one earring. "Bella!" she smiled upon seeing me. "Oh, honey, it's so good to see your face. How's school? Did Charlie find you an oral program like I asked? You need to remember to work on your speech."

That caused me to frown. "I'm fine, Mom," I said, signing as I spoke. "I have an interpreter at school, and I've made a few friends – I'm really liking Forks."

My mother frowned at me. "Bella, stop that –" she flapped her free hand toward me, "– whatever it is, I don't speak sign language, and it's not good for you to rely on it; you won't be able to get anywhere in life if you don't _talk_ to people!"

"It's called sim-com, Mom," I sighed, and I let my hands fall still. "Simultaneous communication. I wasn't signing anything I wasn't saying in English."

She continued to frown, and once her earring was fixed, shook her head. "Well, I just don't like it," she said stubbornly. "You look silly like that, and it's an unneeded crutch." She sighed, and glanced at the wall clock I knew from memory was hung above and to the right of the computer desk. "You need to tell Charlie to put you in a good oral program," she stated, and smoothed out imaginary wrinkles on her dress.

I let it lie. "Are you going somewhere?"

Renee perked up considerably at that, and launched into a rapid-fire monologue about her date night with Phil – I was pretty sure they were seeing a community theatre show, and going out to eat somewhere, but didn't make out much more than that. I nodded and smiled when it looked like she wanted me to, and soon the call was over. Once it was, I jabbed the power button on the computer, and fell back onto my bed.

I was so tired.

.

The next day at school was... strange. As I walked to the cafeteria, I was intercepted by a tall blond boy with light gold eyes. He smiled at me, and I was surprised to find myself grinning back – he had a very easy grin, and it was infectious. "Hi," he said slowly. I furrowed my brows a bit, wondering if he was doing it on purpose, or if he just had a natural drawl. "My name's -per Cullen, I'm Edward's brother..."

He trailed off, noticing my unusually good mood drop off my face in a moment. "Look," I said, "I don't know what I did to insult your brother, but you tell him to leave me alone – and can you please repeat your name for me? I didn't catch all of it."

Mister Tall-Blond-and-Handsome looked taken aback for a moment, but repeated his name: Jasper. And then he went on talking. More lip-reading, hooray.

Wow, I was in a really terrible mood, even for it being early, I realized, surprised at myself.

"I realize you probably wanna eat, but I just wanted to apologize on behalf of my family for how my brother acted toward ya yesterday. It wasn't right, and when Chief Swan called us yesterday evenin' about it, we were all upset. Edward's spending some time with relatives in Alaska for the next week, but we wanted to make sure ya knew that we don't condone what he did, if'n it makes a difference."

I blinked at him, surprised - "You're apologizing?" I asked, wanting to make absolutely sure I understood what he was saying. "For your brother?"

Jasper nodded.

"I – okay," I stammered, a bit baffled. Then, suspiciously, ""You aren't just saying this because my dad called you, are you?

The boy quickly shook his head, and I let it go – I felt like he was being honest, and to be truthful myself, I really wanted to eat.

"Well, um, thanks, then. I'm going to go, uh, eat, now... Bye!"

Later that day, I found that I hated Trigonometry. So much.

Ms. Schreiber wasn't a bad teacher, really. But she got... annoyed when I asked her to repeat things more than once. Apparently I needed to ask things exactly when she was going over them, which was hard, considering that an interpreter was _not_ real-time. There was a lag while Pamela listened to and translated what the teacher was saying.

I understood that – I wasn't even surprised.

I was still slouching in my seat by the end of the period, not bothering to raise my hand when I had a question: there wasn't a point to it. "Train gone,"* indeed.

Not much happened at school, I found. I enjoyed talking to Heather, Faith, and Ben, and occasionally to some of my other classmates. They were on the whole extremely nice, and I didn't mind answering their questions. They didn't really seem to understand that when I said I couldn't hear, it meant I couldn't hear anything they said, though. I took to carrying a book with me to lunch, since it was so difficult to follow conversations in large groups; it was easier to entertain myself rather than tie myself in knots attempting to read everything they said.

That's not to say that I didn't talk to anyone, I did. But I preferred to do so one on one, or with maybe three people at a time. After that, I started missing things more often, and it was too much to keep up with. Thus, I stuck to small groups, and faded into the background as much as possible, smiling and nodding to bluff my way through conversations. I was fine with it, and while I missed the easy access to conversation I had in Phoenix, I didn't mind being mainstreamed. Not much really happened, from my perspective.

A few incidents did stick out, however.

One such incident happened the first day of my second week at Forks High. I was eating lunch in the library, going over my Trig notes, trying to figure out a few things that had baffled me in class, when I noticed someone walking up to me. A pretty girl with curly brown hair and blue eyes waved and sat down across from me. "Hi!" she exclaimed, and thrust her hand forward across the table. "I'm Jessica. Can I, like, ask you some questions?"

I blinked. "O... kay?"

Jessica perked up, and wiggled in her seat happily. She reminded me of Amber Lee, a Deaf ten year old from PDSD I used to babysit. Amber was a very hyper, self-satisfied child. _"Awesome,"_ Jessica said happily. "Okay, so I was wondering – how do you live?"

I stared at her, taken aback. "Excuse me?" I asked.

"How do you live? Like, without sound. I mean, you can't listen to music, or actually hear know what people are saying – I read online, you don't know more than sixty percent of what I'm saying right now, and the rest is just guessing stuff, right? So, uh, how do you live? Doesn't it suck not being able to hear?"

Amazed, I leaned back in my seat. This girl was... blunt, I'd give her that. Usually I didn't meet hearies that were so to the point. I frowned, thinking of how to explain it to her in a way she'd understand. Finally, I gave up, and just started talking.

"I don't remember sound," I said bluntly. "So I don't know whatever it is I'm supposed to be missing. I went deaf when I was three months old. And I do like music – I turn up the volume loud, and feel the vibrations. With my hearing aids, I can even hear some of the parts I don't feel.

"And you're right – I can read sixty percent of what you're saying on your lips, and have to figure out the rest, the context and all that, from your body language and other visual cues. But being Deaf doesn't suck. I'm proud to be Deaf, in fact. My ears don't work enough for the hearing world. So instead, I am a part of the Deaf world, where I can meet anyone, and have an instant connection. I sign, and I have a beautiful culture with history, poetry, and humor." I shrugged.

"I like being Deaf. I wouldn't change it. Where you have sounds, I have lights and buzzers to shake me or catch my attention visually. I live visually, and you live audibly. Does that make sense?" I asked, calming down, mentally stepping away from my soapbox.

Jessica blinked, and nodded. "Uh, yeah?" She got up. "I'm gonna go..."

With a sigh, I dropped my head into my arms. I probably just made my entire community seem like a bunch of psychos to her.

.

*'_Train gone' is a Deaf phrase that means... *thinks on how to phrase this* … it means that the metaphorical train has left the station; the moment's passed. It can refer to instances like Bella's in class, or to, for example, someone not getting a joke. By the time the funny part is explained to them, it's not funny anymore. "Train gone." Does that make sense?_

_Anywho, I hope oyu liked it, and did I end it well? I feel like I may have cut off to abruptly. Tell me what you thought!_

_And of course, **EatYourRikkios.** :)_


	4. Chapter 4

_With a sigh, I dropped my head into my arms. I probably just made my entire community seem like a bunch of psychos to her._

.

September gave way to October, and I was finding that being mainstreamed wasn't as easy as I thought it was – the closest thing I could compare it to was Desert Voices, where I'd come home every day to take a nap before doing my homework, completely tired from school. Forks High was, in many ways, very similar – I'd begun taking naps again, for one.

Not that I didn't like the school. I did, in fact; it was only that I found myself straining to read my classmates lips in Gym, and willing time to slow while I dreaded lunch in fourth period. Once I got home, I was just tired from keeping up with people. I felt like I was working twice as hard for the same grades I was used to.

My lethargy had been gradual, of course – so much so that I didn't even realize it until we had a day off the second Friday of the month, due to some teacher planning day, or town holiday I'd never noticed or cared for.

Once I did realize it, I decided to take advantage of my day away from school. Charlie had taken me driving enough in the past two months that I finally had my driver's license – something I decided to never mention to my mother, for fear of a lecture – so I was essentially free to do as I liked for the day. I had the truck dad bought from Billy Black, and for a moment considered visiting the Blacks at La Push before realizing I didn't know if they had the day off, too.

There went that plan. I glanced around my room. I certainly didn't want to stay home all day, but I didn't know what I could – perfect. My eyes lit onto the Visa gift card Renee had sent me for my birthday, and I had a plan. I'd spend the day at the mall in Seattle, and have some time to myself, no need to try and keep up with people, or even interact with them outside of checkout. Grinning, I grabbed a memo pad and pen, shoved them in my purse, and blazed out the door.

...Five minutes later found me in my room again, a bright, embarrassed red that perfectly matched the waist of the pajama pants I was wearing. I hurriedly changed into jeans and a t-shirt – I'd need to do the laundry soon, I only had one clean shirt left. Fittingly enough, it read, 'No, I do not read lips today.'

Shrugging, I decided the Universe was telling my my fatigue was justified, and slipped the tee shirt over my head. I smiled to myself as I strolled out the front door, grabbing my denim jacket from the hook on the wall and swinging my keys around my fingers. Today was going to be a good day.

Traffic going into Seattle disagreed with me. Judging by the looks some of the other drivers were giving me, they weren't any happier with it, and blamed me. Though that may have been my music. I didn't see what their problem was – it was just loud enough that I could comfortably feel Beethoven's Cello Sonata No. 2 playing. Two-thirds the stereo's full volume wasn't _that_ loud.

The roads finally cleared slightly somewhere past the city line, and I spent perhaps an hour driving around the city, completely lost. The mall was in Northwest Seattle, yet I found myself driving past the Space Needle as it towered high over the Seattle Center. I grinned, imagining the height, forgetting momentarily that I was lost.

Eventually I stopped and asked for directions, using the notepad I'd grabbed nearly four hours prior as I ran out of the house. I frankly couldn't be bothered to read lips at that point – that was the reason I'd chosen to get out of the house, after all. The man at the gas station was very polite, and didn't stare or jump away when he realized I couldn't hear him. Writing was still, however, the most boring way of communicating in the world. It was easier than reading lips, however.

But still boring.

Finally, I was on my way to the mall – it was nearing noon, at this point, and I was getting hungry. I pulled into the mall parking lot, unexpectedly finding an open spot near Macy's, and followed my nose to the food court.

Getting there, I grinned at the sight of the Red Robins – burgers! I shifted my purse on my shoulder, and got into line. A pimply boy, maybe a year younger than I was, stood at the cash register, and smiled cheerily at me. His name tag read 'Corey.' "Hello! How can I help you?" he signed.

I blinked.

Looked down at my shirt.

Looked back at boy.

"You're deaf?" I asked, surprised. To my disappointment, he shook his head.

"Hearing. I'm a CODA. My mom's Deaf – she's over there, with some of her friends." He looked at me for a moment before asking. "Did you just move here? I haven't seen you before, and I'm always here for the socials."

"Socials?" I asked. Corey held up a hand, and turned his head. Looking in the same direction, I noticed a dark-haired woman, in her mid-twenties at most, shouting at him to hurry up something. He grinned sheepishly.

"Sorry. What would you like to order?" he asked.

I nodded. The woman must have been his boss, telling him to hurry _me_ up. "One Simply Grilled Chicken Salad and a Freckled Lemonade, please."

The boy nodded, repeating my order back to me to confirm it. I went to move away after getting my change back, but he touched my arm, grabbing my attention. "The Deaf socials are the second Friday of every month. Go ask my mom about them, she's right there."

That was... so sweet. I nodded, grinning, and thanked him. Taking my order, I carefully navigated the bunches of tables, praying that I didn't trip as I worked toward the red-haired, freckled woman the boy had pointed out – excepting the pimples, she looked very much like her son.

I set my tray down on the raised area next to me, careful not to let the leafy plants growing from the top touch my food. The two women Corey's mother was talking to noticed me, and I smiled before saying hello. The women smiled, and Corey's mom turned around.

"Hello!" she signed, apparently the leader of the little group. "I'm V-e-l-m-a W-o-o-d-s, Velma*. Who are you?"

"My name's I-s-a-b-e-l-l-a S-w-a-n, Bella – I just moved to Forks this summer. Your son, C-o-r-e-y, over there, said to ask you about Deaf socials?" I furrowed my eyebrows in a question.

Velma laughed, and hugged me. I jumped slightly at the contact, but wasn't entirely surprised. She and her friends, Roxanne and Debora, invited me to sit with them, and the four of us spent the next hour or so talking, sharing back stories. How we went Deaf, where we were from, if we had any family that signed – detailed biographies, really.

Velma and Debora were sisters, only a year apart, and both lost their hearing in their late teens due to Ménière's disease, like their father and his brother. Roxanne had been Deaf since birth, and met the Woods sisters at her school's homecoming dance, which they went to with their father and uncle one year. She was nearly half a decade younger than the other two, and very expressive.

I was the only one at the table from out of state – I grudgingly admitted that my mother didn't sign, a major motivation for me to move to Washington, since my dad did. The three of them expressed sympathy, and assured me that there were plenty of other deafies around the state, if I just knew where to look. I wrinkled my nose and agreed, with one qualifier – "If I'm lucky enough to find a CODA to point out where!"

That got a laugh out of the women, and soon I found myself signing with other people around the food court most of them Deaf, but with some CODAs and ASL students in the mix, as well. All too quickly, my watch vibrated, telling me that it was four o'clock – time to check in with Charlie. It was difficult to believe I'd been loitering around the food court for three and a half hours.

I texted my dad, letting him know where I was, and exclaiming over the social. He didn't reply, and I shoved my phone in my pocket. He was probably out somewhere, chasing after some teenager taking advantage of the free day to shoplift or something.

Soon I noticed more and more teens and children showing up now that school was out for the day, and stood for a moment, dithering over whether or not to leave when a was knocked into from behind. I twisted around, somehow managing to loose my footing and fall over. I blinked, dizzy, looked up. A tall girl was looking at my with surprise abnd holding out a hand to help me up.

"I am so sorry!" she signed once I was steady again. "Are you okay? You're not hurt, are you?" I shook my head.

"Fine, it's fine," I reassured her, and her shoulders fell in relief. She had very orange hair – I wondered if it was dyed?

"Oh, good," she said. "I'm C-a-r-a B-i-a-n-c-h-i, Cara."

Shaking her hand, I smiled and introduced myself. "I'm I-s-a-b-e-l-l-a- S-w-a-n, Bella. Is your hair really orange?"

She grinned, her nose wrinkling, and put a hand up to touch the long strands before answering. "No, I dyed it this summer. It was supposed to wash our, but I think it likes me too much!"

We both snickered over that fro a moment. "So why did you dye it?" I asked.

Cara shrugged. "Wanted to. Brown is boring – Italian's nice, but I wanted something fun!"

"So you _are_ Italian!"

"Yep. My mom and dad moved here when they had my oldest brother. I have three of them."

I'm certain my jaw dropped. "_Three_ older brothers?"

The other girl nodded. "Three. First Antonio, who's twenty-one; second, Leonardo, who's nineteen, third, Luca, who's seventeen, and last is me, age sixteen."

"Wow," I signed, amazed. "I'm an only child, just me and my dad, now."

Cara's face feel out of it's seemingly-eternal smile and she touched my arm, trying to comfort me. "Your mom?"

I shook my head, and moved her arm from mine. "Fine. She lives in Phoenix, Arizona. I just moved to live with my dad, this summer – I'm happy about it. My dad signs, mom doesn't. Living with my dad is nice – I'm going to mainstream school for the first time ever."

"You go to hearing school? Same!" Cara grinned, her nose wrinkling like it had before. "I used to go to - here in Seattle, but they don't have a High School program, so now I go to R-o-o-s-e-v-e-l-t Rossevelt in the Deaf are you going to hearing school?"

"What's -?" I asked, confused.

Cara blinked. "Oh, my bad! - is Northwest School for Hearing Impaired Childred – snobby name for 'Seattle Deaf Kids School.' So why are you going to hearing school?" she asked again, very insistent. She reminded me of a dog with a bone.

Happy to have that sign cleared up, I nodded. "Okay, okay! I live in F-o-r-k-s, near the coast. It's three hours from Seattle, and I wanted to actually live with my dad. I went to the Deaf school in Phoenix, but I like my dad better than my mom, so I decided to stay with him while she travels with her basesball husband, P-h-i-l, Phil. Besides, if I went to a Deaf school here, my mom would _never_ shut up about joining an oral program. I already talk just fine."

Cara's head tilted to the side, like she was trying to figure something out. "Really?" she asked. "When did you go deaf?"

"When I was a baby, three months old – I caught meningitis on the plane my mom took us on to leave my dad. I got better, but now I'm deaf. Mom wasn't happy, made me go to an oral school until I demanded not to. I didn't like it – the people were nice, but signing's easier than talking, you know? But Dad learned to sign, even though I didn't live with him. What about you?"

The taller girl shrugged. "When I was four, I had a bad fall. I was climbing the tallest tree I could find in the park, and my dad startedd yelling at me. 'Cara! Cara! Come down, you'll get hurt!' So I start climbing down, and a raccon wakes up. It's scared, I';m scared, it hised, and I lost my footing. Fell down the rest of the way and hit my head. I broke my arm, and when I woke up, I was deaf. Doctor said it was eighty percent hearing loss, and to be happy I was alive. My dad yelled at him. He's very loud."

My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I grabbed it with one hand, asking Cara to wait with the other, it was my dad. I smiled slightly at the message, and answered before putting it back in my jeans pocket.

"What did he say?"

"Wants me home by ten, so I think I need to go now – I have to buy things for my room – a table, curtains, a lamp. To make it my own, you know?"

Cara nodded. "That's fine. Do you want my email address? That way we can keep talking."

I grinned. "Perfect. I'd love that. Here, I have some paper..."

Ten minutes later, Cara and I had a exchanged email addresses, actual adddresses – which were actually fairly close, compared to Seattle; she lived in Port Angeles – and promises to Skype. I'd somehow managed to get Velma, and by extension Corey's, emails and phone numbers as well, so that by the time I finally left the mall, fifteen minutes had passed, a wide smile plastered across my face.

Ross was, to my surprise, not too busy. Then again, I thought, glancing at my watch, it was only five-fifteen. Most people didn't get off of work until at least five-thirty. I spent some time looking around before deciding on buying anything. I came across several interesting things, and kept them in mind – I had one hundred dollars on the Visa gift card from Renee, twenty dollars of birthday money from Phil, and about eleven dollars of my own cash in case I needed extra to cover tax.

Firming up what I could afford in my mind, I set off toward the furniture, and at half-past six, left the store quite happy. I had my pretty bedside table, a navy-colored lamp with a blue-splotched white shade, indigo curtains, heavier clothes for fall and winter, and a very cheap, large oddly-shaped mirror so I didn't have to keep walking in on Charlie while he shaved in the morning. It had originally been forty dollars, according to the old price stickers – I got it for six.

I was able to fit everything inside the cab of the truck, which was a relief, because I was worried it may fall out if I couldn't strap it down in the bed. The high likelihood of rain and my lack of waterproof cover also factored into my nerves.

The nightstand did not fit into the cab willingly, however.

When I got home, it was to the smell of spaghetti and Chinese take-out, which meant one thing, and one thing only – the Blacks were here to watch a sports game. I took full advantage of this when the ads came on and enlisted my father and Jacob to help me with my things, while Billy and I... directed. And chuckled at Jacob's moaning about the weight of the wooden bedside table. I couldn't make it all out with my hearing aids, not with the rain, but his lips and body language were definitely easy to read.

Between the four of us, all my things were in the kitchen by the time the game was back on, and I spent the second half pulling my things up to my room.

Looking around, I decided I liked my room. Blues dominated the space, but it wasn't a boy's room. No boy beyond the age of five would stand to have powder blue walls, if they even tolerated it that long. The variety of warm woods in my furniture complimented each other and dark floor well, and the contrast with the walls was pleasant.

My mirror hung on the same wall as the window, and my lamp and end table sat right by my bed – no longer would my books sit on a suitcase! They could go in the bottom of the nightstand, now! I spent some time arranging things on the table, setting up picture frames and the books I was currently reading and the like, before being satisfied.

All my clothes were put away, and after kicking off my shoes, I decided that the only thing left to buy was a rug – the hard wood was cold. My poor frozen toes.

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_* "A-p-p-l-e, Apple," is to signify finger-spelling a name of either a person or place before showing its name sign._

_I'm not entirely happy with this chapter; I think it's an important building one, but I'm worried it's too short – what do you guys think? What do you want to see happen? Let me know! Thanks, and make sure you _**EatYourRikkios**_! (I love adding that ;-D)_


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